Blog - San Juan - Puerto Rico
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18.03.2022
February 12–March 26, 2022 at Embajada, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Embajada is pleased to present, ALLÁ AFUERA TE ESPERA UN PAÍS PARA DISFRUTARLO (OUT THERE A COUNTRY IS WAITING FOR YOU TO ENJOY IT), Chemi Rosado-Seijo’s third solo exhibition at the gallery. The work presented is a continuation of his ongoing project, Tapando para Ver (Closing to See). The project, which he began developing in 1999, is a series of interventions and manipulations of print advertisements and various other media. Using mostly the medium of collage, the artist reveals new messages and demonstrates the ease at which language and images can be molded. With this series, Rosado-Seijo creates his own version of subliminal messaging and propaganda.
For this most recent portion of the series, Rosado-Seijo includes a sequence of small manipulations where he uses collage methods: cutting and pasting words and images, as well as intentionally covering up space with black marker. This new series, such as in the work Un Mes Línea, groups sets of 30 advertisements found in gas station pumps, one for each day of a month. There is an element of rebellion and aggression to these pieces made by actions of theft, cutting, and slicing of phrases, and the marking of thick, visible strokes that censor unwanted messaging. He is, in a way, emulating and reclaiming the way advertisements are invasive to the viewer, to the consumer.
The two largest compositions in the exhibition are also a continuation of a version of Tapando para ver that was an installation at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico in 2000. For these he has assembled what he considers to be a ‘library’ of manipulated bus stop posters. This newer version expands the idea of a collection of these posters, and on the revelation of new messages and layers. The original video from this exhibition Para TV, de Tapando para Ver, 2000, accompanies the new works. Rosado-Seijo utilizes archeological approaches to digging and uncovering messages, as well as the opposite techniques like layering posters on top of one another and covering them.
Chemi Rosado-Seijo
Chemi Rosado-Seijo (b. 1973, Vega Alta, Puerto Rico) is a socially-engaged artist whose practice juxtaposes architecture and the urban landscape, work and social action, art and its history. He graduated from the painting department of the Puerto Rico School of Visual Arts in 1997. In 2000, Rosado-Seijo had his first solo show at the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, which included interventions on billboards around the city. He inaugurated the widely documented project El Cerro in 2002 which is ongoing, working with residents of the El Cerro community, to present public art projects, workshops and other community initiatives. In Historia sobre Ruedas (History on Wheels), his 2005 project with Art in General, Seijo mapped Manhattan from the perspective of a skateboarder, re-drawing the city in terms of its skating sites. Seijo has participated in numerous exhibitions and biennials including The Whitney Biennial (2017, 2002), Prague (2005), Pontevedra (2010) Havana (2015) and the first Thailand Biennial in Krabi (2018). In 2011 he received the Joan Mitchell Foundation grant. In May of 2015, Rosado-Seijo was granted The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artist as Activist Fellowship for El Cerro, honoring artists pursuing ambitious creative projects with a social purpose. Most recently, Rosado-Seijo had a solo exhibition at the Maria & Alberto de la Cruz Art Gallery at Georgetown University curated by Al Miner in 2020 and has a long term site-specific skate bowl currently on view at Art Omi, commissioned by Zach Feuer,
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